Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action Paperback – 6 Oct. 2011

230 pages of why start with why is the most important thing, great read

In one word “inspirational”. This is a must read for everyone, doesn’t matter what age or what stage of their career journey.

I thought this was an inspiring concept, which of course is Mr Sinek’s ‘Why’ - In many ways it seems logical, yet most of us, and especially businesses chasing the pound note focus on the ‘how and what’. The reason for 4 * is that it gets a little repetitive with the majority of case studies being focused on a small number of highly successful companies such as Apple, Wal-Mart, and Costco. A cynic would argue that these companies would be easy to reverse engineer any inspirational leadership ‘formula’ to fit as we know them so well. What would have been nice to see would have been some examples of it in practice for smaller businesses, who aren’t reaching for the the dizzy heights of ‘Fortune 500’ - because as romantic as the notion of Jobs and Woz, or Sam Walton being idealistic socially centric world changers, they and their companies have made £billions and continue to do so, something 99.9% of businesses will never achieve (or arguably even aspire to).

I like the fact that Simon Sinek used a lot of practical examples to drive his point home, even his own personal experience.

Really enjoyed this book. As a business owner sharing the reason why I do what I do is important and this book gave a fascinating insight into the difference it’s can make.

I might be a little unfair giving this book a 3 and perhaps that speaks more to my own expectation than anything else. There is nothing inherently wrong with the book, the core concept of the golden circle is well explained and well-repeated and therefore is memorable. That is something that many management books fail to do but Sinek manages this well.The mid-range score is also perhaps a reflection on how assimilated the concept of 'why' has come into management theory that it no longer feels fresh (while still clearly retaining relevance). The style is rather jarring and feels on the wrong side of self-help as to be rendered kitsch. A tad harsh, perhaps because conceptually it is a good book. There are sone nuggets of wisdom here and anecdotes that are worth keeping.Perhaps because it is lacking in any validated quantitative research beyond the author's own experience that overall it falls a little flat and the book takes a while to get going, again probably due to expectation - the book, for me, is a victim of its own hype and popularity.Overall though, it is certainly one for the bookshelf and it isn't too taxing. There is value to be had from reading it but I get the feeling that as time passes the impact of the book will continue to wane. This is probably a book I would recommend alongside others, but never the single 'go to' book on building purposeful organisations.

This is a key read for anyone in business looking to gain trust and loyalty from customers. Makes so much sense......

I purchased this book as I am a manager and had an issue with motivating a particular member of the team. I found his point about starting with why very beneficial. Asked myself why, before asking the individual. Chapter 1 was painful and pointless so read beyond it as the opening is like swimming through treacle. It's specifically geared at Americans which is OK I guess, just annoyed me a bit (the sort of person who thinks every sentence they make is profound). He tends to repeat his point a lot in all the chapters so probably could have been condensed as he goes off piste a few times. However, in all I am glad I read it and did have some valuable take aways from it hence the higher score. If it was pointless I would have score a 1 but I genuinely do think this is worthwhile if you need to get to the crux of an issue in the workplace.